All over the world and throughout the ages there has appeared many wooden stringed musical instruments, predominantly that are played by picking of the strings, e.g., with fingers or picks, or by bowing the strings, e.g., with a bow. Ethnic types of wooden stringed instruments that may be played by a bow include Valihas, Tambura, and zithers. These instrument traditionally are tubular shaped instruments having strings tensioned across the length of the tube and having a bridge mechanism lying transverse to the length of the strings.
The Tambura, in particular is a "drone lute", and is not designed for melodic playing. It contains a bridge that is moveable for adjusting the pitch and in essence lays down an accompanying chord as a backdrop for some other instrument. This instrument may be an idiochord, having a single string or, a heterochord instrument with multiple strings. Zither instruments are also droning instruments, and as such, produce one fundamental tone per string, with its associate overtones, at a time.
The Valihas is a heterochord instrument with multiple strings, and is more closely related to the harp with each string set to a specific pitch before they are played.
A common instrument found in India is the sitar, which may include a hollow neck that forms a gourd shaped resonant body and is not designed as a drone. Played strings run over arched metal and movable frets and sympathetic strings run under the frets in the troughed neck to lateral tuning pegs.
The more commonly known and appreciated stringed instruments include the guitar and related instruments, e.g., bass guitar, banjo, dobro, etc., and the violin, and related family of instruments, e.g., cello, viola, double bass, etc.
As shown in FIG. 1, the conventional guitar 40 is characterized by a body 45, having incurved sides 45a and 45b, a solid neck portion 55 extending from the body. Six strings 44 are fastened by tailpiece 47 at one end of the body 45 that are tensioned to pass over a bridge 46 mounted on the body and additionally pass over a nut 43 mounted near the end of the neck 55 and are wound around tuning pegs 42 situated at the end of the neck. For most of their length, the strings pass over a fingerboard 48 with the vibrating length of each string being defined by the bridge 46, and the nut 43. Frets 49 are provided that are pressed by fingers for changing the length of the vibrating string. A large circular hole 51 is provided for providing emanating sounds produced by the vibrating strings and resonating through the hollow body structure.
A hollow box shown in broken lines 52 forms the body of the guitar and functions to make the sound from the vibrating strings audible. The hollow box 52 is actually part of a resonant system consisting of a strings stretched across a bridge, and set into vibration at its resonance frequency which, in turn, exerts vibrating forces on the body of the instrument through the bridge. Particularly, the traditional bridge 46 (FIG. 1) has a foot print of 0.25 sq. in. to 6.0 sq. in. at the point where the bridge rests on the top plate of the sound chamber. The body 45 of the instrument serves two functions such as supporting the strings so that they can vibrate properly, and to make the sounds from the vibrating strings audible. As vibrating strings themselves disturb very little air and hence practically radiate no sound, the important job of the guitar body is to transmit these strings vibrations to the air in such a way as to give them loudness and tone.
The quality of the sound the guitar radiates will depend not only on the harmonic structure of the vibration of the string, but also on the way in which these harmonics are transmitted through the bridge to the body, and hence to the air through sound hole 51.
As shown in the side view of the hollow guitar body 45 FIG. 2, the strings 44 are when tensioned over the bridge 46 in the direction indicated by arrow B and arrow F. String tensions on guitars start at about 18 psi for the thinnest string on an acoustic guitar up to about 40 psi on the low "E" string of an electric guitar, heavy gauge). For an electric bass, string tensions may start at about 35 psi, for the thin string and exceed over about 50 lbs. for the lowest (heaviest gauge) string. Strings on upright acoustic basses may be tensioned starting at 60 psi and can exceed over 70 psi on the lowest string. The resulting tension creates a resultant force that is exerted downward as indicated by the direction of arrow A. This force is transmitted downward to the top plate of the body 45 with the transmitted downward force being proportionate to the tensile force of the string.
In view of the tensile forces exerted by the strings on such guitar instruments, especially in consideration of a hollow neck structure instead of the predominant solid neck construction as used in more commonly known and appreciated stringed instruments, it readily is understood that a minimum material wall and body strength must be provided. Thus, for example, a bass guitar, e.g., cannot be simply manufactured by tensioning a bass guitar string on a long piece of hollow bamboo, as the bamboo just can't hold the tension. Moreover, it is not a simple matter of just getting a larger piece of wood and hollowing it out, because, in order to withstand the string tension forces exhibited, the body walls would have to be thick or reinforced with strengthening materials, e.g., plastics or wood, making the instrument too heavy, bulky, and with very little body resonance.
It would thus be highly desirable to provide a wooden stringed musical instrument that is lightweight and easy to play, and can be manufactured at relatively low cost.
Additionally, it would be highly desirable to provide a wooden stringed musical instrument that is lightweight, hollow, and of cylindrical or conical (tapered) construction, and that can be circular and/or elliptical in cross-section and capable of accommodating tension created by thick gauge guitar strings, e.g., bass guitar strings.
Moreover, it would thus be highly desirable to provide a wooden musical stringed instrument that is lightweight and may be modular or unitary in design, and, is capable of being played in acoustic or electric formats, with or without additional sound chamber structure.